


we all need saving

by soldierly



Series: reveille [2]
Category: Captain America (2011), Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Assassins & Hitmen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-13
Updated: 2011-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-27 07:07:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/293023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soldierly/pseuds/soldierly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU where there are no powers/superheroes. Bucky heads off to war and Steve stays behind, joins the NYPD. Bucky goes MIA in Russia -- and returns three years later with a secret that threatens them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we all need saving

**Author's Note:**

> This will be finished with the next part!

Two weeks later, Steve still has a job, he's still on the Winter Soldier case, and the biggest incident in the precinct was a pot of botched coffee.

Not bad, considering he was certain he'd be in prison by now.

Apparently Fury's decided to go soft touch with him on this -- Steve can't fathom _why_. Fury damn near busts a lung yelling when Barton doesn't file paperwork correctly, but he's letting the fact that _Steve knows a serial killer_ go. There's a saying about gift horses, though, and Steve's going to run with this one as long as he can, even if it's headed off a cliff.

He's the last to leave headquarters that night, his scarf wound tight around his neck to ward off the late evening flurries and the chill they bring. It's March; winter is ending. Steve always thinks to ask Bucky if that means the murders will stop too, but he's never worked up the will to separate them -- and a question like that will separate them, and Steve already gets so little time with Bucky anymore, and he won't waste what he has, and and and. _Stop_ , he tells himself, and focuses instead on the snap of his footsteps, the cracking of slick-frozen snow that rides low under the usual noise of the city, touching the broad walls and the alleyways, a natural echolocation.

Steve's house is small, slim, and sandwiched between two identical brown buildings on a street filled with tens of others. They're all new, like so many things are new now. The whole war-torn world is clambering back onto its feet, recovering, and Steve sees the ripples of that here. He remembers what it was like during the Depression, and in the nothing years between then and the start of the war, when he and Bucky had to scrap just to piece together what could pass as a meal.

The entire place feels different when Bucky's there, and it only takes Steve three steps to realize that he is. "Buck?" he calls, toeing his boots off. He unwinds his scarf, thumbs the buttons of his coat open, sets his briefcase down by the kitchen door, and leaves both scarf and jacket on the couch, heedless of the slush gathered on them. Something is off, sure and haunting, so Steve pads upstairs, ducking his head to avoid the low overhang of the landing. He says Bucky's name again, worried, but there's no answer, and when Steve hits the top of the stairs he can hear his shower running.

He pushes open the bathroom door, coughs through the cloud of steam that billows out. "Bucky, hey," he says before he sees him, curled over on himself and sitting, still fully clothed, on the floor of the shower stall, his knees pulled up tight to his chest and water pouring down over him. Steve's inside in an instant, slipping in the water -- pink water, tinted with blood, _oh god_ \-- that's spilled out over the floor. He braces one knee on the linoleum and reaches inside, his hand on Bucky's shoulder, fumbling down toward his chest, searching for a wound. Bucky jerks away from him, a sluggish, delayed response.

"Don't," he rasps out, pushing back into the corner of the stall. His eyes are wide and blank, cold -- how long has he been in here? Steve rocks back, the legs of his pants already drenched through with water, with blood, "Whose blood?" Steve barks. "Bucky, _whose blood_?"

"Not mine," Bucky mutters, looking past him. That's the important thing, really, that's all Steve's asking, and he's not sure what kind of person that makes him. "It's -- " Bucky shakes his head hard, hugging his legs tighter to him, like he's trying to keep himself from splitting in half. "I," he starts, and then his gaze is on Steve, his expression sickened, hopeless.

Steve reaches for him again, slower this time, and Bucky edges out of range until he's got nowhere to go; he gives into it then, his body slumping with a ragged noise, his shoulder pushing into Steve's hand. "Okay," Steve murmurs, sliding into the stall, the roar of the water -- Christ, it's hot -- swallowing everything, pulling him into a void where he has nothing but Bucky. He shuffles in and braces his back against the shower wall, spreads his legs to pull Bucky between them, against him, and Bucky _shakes_ , trembles from the inside out and clings to Steve.

He gropes blindly for the knob, trying to turn the water off, but Bucky snatches his hand with a strangled " _No_ ," and so Steve leaves it, and they sit under the spray for a long while, Steve's hand massaging up and down Bucky's spine.

Bucky moves first, shifting stiffly from the solid, comforting bulk of Steve's body, and slaps his hand against the wall, finds the knob and twists it off. "I need," he says, pulling at the straps of his jacket, frustration clouding over him when he can't get them loose. Steve doesn't step in to help, knows Bucky better than anyone and knows that trying to help him now would only make Bucky withdraw. He can't afford to have Bucky close him off, not now, when Steve can see he's the only thing anchoring him. _To what_ , that treacherous little (moral) voice whispers. _To humanity?_ The same question Steve's been shoving to the back of his mind for months.

Bucky shucks his shirt, boots, pants, everything, unselfconscious, and mumbles an apology for ruining Steve's floor. "It's fine," Steve tells him. "At least it's not laundry soap." He's going for a smile -- Bucky has to remember that, when they were both twelve, thirteen maybe, and Bucky's mama had been right spitfire mad at them for ruining her favorite dress, and they'd tried to run a wash for her and had ended up flooding the kitchen and half the sitting room with soap bubbles. That was only a few weeks before she died.

"Yeah," Bucky says vaguely, in a way that makes Steve wonder if he actually doesn't remember. Things seemed fuzzy for him sometimes. "I'm gonna, I need a shower."

It's so ridiculous, him saying that, and it fits perfectly into the mess of who they are. "Should I go?" Steve asks, and Bucky nods, but when Steve steps out, Bucky's hand closes around his upper arm, grip viselike.

"No," he amends, his eyes clearer now. "No, don't -- go. Stay," with an aching slice of desperation.

Steve rocks back on his heels, reaches up to undo the buttons of his soaked shirt. The tense line of Bucky's shoulders relaxes, and he waits until Steve's undressed to let the water run again. He passes a bottle of soap back to Steve, permission, and Steve soaps his shoulders first, up the back of his neck, down along his spine, the pads of his fingers brushing over every scar, gently tracing the mangled skin over the sweeping slide of his right hip. This is the most he's touched Bucky in months. Even when they have sex, which isn't often, it's rough and quick, because Bucky won't stand for it any other way.

He wraps his fingers around the dip of Bucky's side and pulls him back so Steve can wash down his chest, over his stomach and thighs, his hands quick and efficient, but slower the longer he touches. Bucky's hand drifts to Steve's thigh, his fingers curled, and Steve leans into him, setting his chin on Bucky's shoulder. It feels like they're drifting toward sex, maybe, with Bucky soft and listing back, pliant, but then Steve has to open his mouth. _You're always so afraid I'm going to leave you_ , he almost says, but doesn't.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?"

"No," Bucky says instantly, voice hard. Expected. Steve nods and straightens, slides his hands into Bucky's hair. He's not the type to talk unnecessarily, and he picked the wrong moment to slip up. They finish in silence, distance back to clinical rather than personal, and leave the bathroom flooded and littered with wet clothing.

Bucky strides to the bedroom ahead of Steve, so Steve wraps a towel around his hips and goes to the kitchen to make coffee. The lights feel searing, too bright, and when Bucky comes in he flips them off, pulls the chain for the single dim bulb over the stove. They've always ridden on the same wavelength on some frequency, and even shattered as they are now, it warms the bottom of Steve's stomach to know they aren't totally wrenched apart.

Steve hands Bucky a cup of coffee (or, rather, sugar with a splash of coffee; Bucky's always taken his so sweet) and drops down to sit at the kitchen table, elbows braced on the sanded wood. Bucky stands, leaning in the doorway, hands cupped around his coffee. "You'll find out tomorrow," he says, "and I don't wanna talk about it. Ever."

"Okay," Steve agrees, unease crawling up the back of his neck. Bucky's never hidden his crimes, not since Steve found out. He doesn't take _pride_ in them, not quite, but there's a shade there, a lick of defiance that denies any shame he might feel. It's something he _has_ to do, for reasons that are his secrets; he's said enough that Steve knows that. It's something he has to do, and Steve fears that it might be something that a carnal thing inside him is coming to enjoy. _What if, what if_.

This, this twisted almost-chagrin, the scene in the shower, is different. They're waltzing, _careening_ off the pages of their own script, and Steve feels as stranded as Bucky always looks in his off moments.

"It's different from the others," Bucky continues, startling Steve from his thoughts. "And if you don't want me coming 'round again, I won't."

"I'm not going to send you away, Buck," Steve sighs.

There's a long silence, and then Bucky laughs dryly, self-deprecating, unhinged. "You should. The things I've _done_ , pal."

Steve looks up at him, eyes narrowed slightly. The nervousness coiled in his stomach -- oh god, is that what it is? is he _afraid_ of Bucky? -- flares up hard. "Bucky, what..."

"I'm _not going to talk about it_ ," Bucky snaps, ripping and harsh, his anger unfurling dangerously, and his coffee cup smashes against the wall an inch from Steve's head.

Steve jerks away from it, hand going to his hip for his pistol. He grasps empty air, the grip of instinct and muscle memory fading. "Jesus Christ, Bucky!" and Bucky's gaping at him, frozen. When Steve gets up, Bucky startles backward, waving him off.

"Bucky, it's okay," Steve says, hands held up, palms facing Bucky. "Buck, hey."

"I gotta go," Bucky says, and in the next second he's fleeing toward the bathroom, steps heavy with upset. "No, Steve, I mean it, I'm _leavin_ '," he insists when Steve crowds the bathroom door, his drawl accentuated, his movements jerky and his hands unsteady. Steve hasn't seen his hands shake since he reappeared; a sniper needs capable hands, a murderer needs to be calm and clear-headed, needs to not leave any trace.

Steve's chest tightens when Bucky shuffles toward him with an armful of wet clothes, trying to force his way past him. "Bucky," he growls, squaring up his shoulders, and Bucky breathes, "Are you really gonna fight me, Rogers?"

"Is that what it'll take?" Steve asks. "You can't go back out there like this."

"I was gonna -- I wanted to _hurt_ you," Bucky says, his eyes dropping from Steve's, his white-knuckled fingers denting the soft lines of his jacket. "I _wanted_ to, never wanted to before, not _you_. Can't," he murmurs, suddenly absent, and then he snaps back into himself with a full-body roll of nerves. "I'm going. You wanna keep me here? Arrest me."

Steve feels the blood drain from his face. Somehow it hurts more when Bucky says it, when he makes it real. That's exactly what Steve should do. He should end this game of theirs, this -- this _insanity_ , but instead he steps aside, letting Bucky shoulder roughly past him to duck into the living room. He reappears seconds later with his rifle and leather holster slung over his shoulder.

"Don't look for me," Bucky says, hysterical now, manic. "Don't try to find me, Steve, it's." He makes a strained noise, like he's been punched. "It'll be better if you ain't involved, I shoulda known that from the start, stupid fuckin' me had to come back here." Steve steps toward him, and he jitters backward like a spooked horse. "I'm sorry for draggin' you into this, I -- "

"Don't," Steve interrupts. "Bucky, what are you _talking_ about, of course I'll always help -- "

"You can't." Bucky's staring at him, his jaw tight. "You can't help me, it's because of me that you're even worked into this."

"I love you," Steve says, honest but hardened. It's not like he hasn't said it before, but it seems important to say it now, of all times. Steve needs him to know this with a fierceness that blindsides him. "I love you, and you know you'll always have me."

Bucky's eyes dip, then slide back up, and he looks so sheared open and broken that Steve wants to go to him, but he can't, he can't bring himself to move, pinned there by the sudden, utter _emptiness_ he sees in Bucky.

"That's the problem."

And then he's gone, leaving the resounding slam of Steve's front door and a gust of bitter, cold wind in his wake.

+++

The headline that splinters it all goes like this: _Mother and two children found slain in their beds_.


End file.
